The unbalanced gender ratio and power relationship in science and engineering professionals are important issues for feminist studies. This study is a preliminary attempt to explore the gender black box in engineering higher education. I examine the daily practice and trainings in an engineering laboratory and analyze how the engineering laboratory been constructed as masculine and how does it stabilize?

I argue, the masculine laboratory has emerged through the discourse of hegemonic masculinity, mediation of objects, and teasing interaction. The ideal engineer is characterized by hegemonic masculinity, and is configured by objects, symbols, and discourse. Graduate students need to construct a human-material technology network to perform hegemonic masculinity and to be mainstream engineers. In this process, most men acquire resources while some men and most women become marginalized.

Further, masculine engineering laboratories are produced and stabilized by two power mechanisms: the centralized vertical power network and the distributed horizontal gaze power network, which enable most men to acquire resources and contentment, while most women and non-mainstream men are marginalized. The centralized vertical power network is embedded in the pyramid hierarchy of engineering laboratories in Taiwan higher education. Under this hierarchical power relationship, the masculine training and the requirement of teachers produce and stabilize masculine engineering laboratory. Distributed horizontal gaze power network emerges from male-subjective teasing and heterosexuality reconfirmation in daily interactions. This practice stabilizes the gendered power hierarchy of hegemonic masculinity.